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Family Medicine fights faculty shortages by Heather Woolwine Public Relations Health care faces numerous challenges, among them staff shortages that directly affect coworkers, patients and families.  But shortages in faculty who teach individuals to become those highly- sought-after health care professionals create a new frontier of problems. Family Medicine Drs. Spencer Morris, Greenwood, Heather Liszka, Charleston, Bill Hueston, MUSC Family Medicine chairman and professor, Cheyenne Babcock, USC-Winnsboro, and Marcia Taylor, Charleston, during their Jan. 5 session. Not pictured is Dr. Maria Gibson, Charleston. Facing a decrease in primary care residency programs throughout the state, MUSC’s Peter Carek, M.D., MUSC Family Medicine program director, leads an effort to support and better prepare physicians and other health care professionals in becoming effective educators. With the help of MUSC faculty members Arch Mainous, Ph.D., Family Medicine, Amy Blue, Ph.D., College of Medicine, and William Hueston, M.D., Family Medicine chairman, the program responds to a need throughout family medicine residency training. “We invite both regular and clinical faculty involved in primary care throughout the state to participate,” Carek said. “Right now we have pharmacists, physicians, and other interdisciplinary health care professionals participating. Through this fellowship, we’re encouraging South Carolina health care professionals to improve their teaching, administrative and research skills.” The current program, called the Community Educator Leadership Training in Charleston (CELTIC), consists of six weeks on the MUSC campus spread across the academic year. MUSC’s own Family Medicine faculty development fellows join junior educators from other AHEC-sponsored training sites to participate in seminars geared towards skill enhancement. Seminar topics vary and contain modules like educational development, writing clinical reviews, and contract negotiation. While most residency programs traditionally focus on teaching and research skills, the CELTIC program places increased emphasis on administrative skills due to new regulations and complex financial aspects of in the health care system. In-between seminars, participants must complete assignments addressing specific issues in their education. Participants spend five weeks in Charleston and then attend a week-long conference conducted by the Society of Family Medicine Teachers in the spring. This year’s conference is planned for Toronto. “I truly hope this program helps and encourages them to take their acquired knowledge back to their training sites and use that knowledge to teach others,” Carek said. AHEC, South Carolina's Area Health Education Consortium, merged with South Carolina Statewide Family Practice Residency Programs, which was created in 1973 under the leadership of Hiram Curry, M.D., former chairman and professor of Family Medicine at MUSC. Residency programs now exist in Charleston, Greenville, Columbia, Spartanburg, Anderson, Florence, Seneca and Greenwood, and the diversity of these family practice locations provide unique combinations of faculty, facilities, staff and community settings. “This program’s success depends heavily on the support we receive from South Carolina AHEC and from the various family medicine program directors from all over the state,” Carek said. “The programs in which the current fellows are working have to cover for these folks while they are here, a week at a time. Everyone involved in this effort has been very supportive and encouraging.” “It’s a nice blend of community and university educators all working together to become better faculty members,” said Hueston. Future plans for the CELTIC program include site expansion and potential partnerships with other institutions of higher learning in the state.    Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to petersnd@musc.edu or catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Community Press at 849-1778.